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My OCD requires me to go to great pains to order my drives. The first hard drive in the top of the rack is connected to port 0, the second is connected to port 1 and so on. That way I never get confused about which is which, but just in case I label the drives and the cables. Windows goes to great lengths to confuse the crap out of me. But, the only redeeming factor is it does not matter how or why Windows does it's numbering scheme. What does matter is the computer runs just as well, and my OCD has driven me completely nuts because of it. So, the next thread you ask a question and I answer, just remember, this guy is nuts.

My OCD requires me to go to great pains to order my drives. The first hard drive in the top of the rack is connected to port 0, the second is connected to port 1 and so on. That way I never get confused about which is which, but just in case I label the drives and the cables. Windows goes to great lengths to confuse the crap out of me. But, the only redeeming factor is it does not matter how or why Windows does it's numbering scheme. What does matter is the computer runs just as well, and my OCD has driven me completely nuts because of it. So, the next thread you ask a question and I answer, just remember, this guy is nuts.

My kind of guy!

All seriousness aside, I'm just as OCD; I have to be to avoid sliding even farther down the slippery slope to insanity, down which I've already "slud" quite a ways. Heck, no one in their right mind would attemp to build a computer knowing as little as I do.

I have all my internal HDDs marked with the order they are stacked in (I'll add labels to the ends later once I'm satisfied I won't be making changes. I have the backup HDDs for the internal HHDs and SSD (a total of nine right now; 12 if you count the three for my notebook) all marked with the drive they will be backing up. I haven't resorted to labeling SATA cables yet but will soon.

What I had wanted was to have the top HDD in the drive cage numbered 1, the second one 2, etc. (the SDD is on the bottom under the stack but I need a drive at the top to support the power cable). I still do to match the drive name (Data Disk 1, etc.) and have the drive number in the system match but it's apparently not meant to be (). I'll just have to make sure the drive letter is labeled on the end with both the drive label as well as the drive name. I just pray to God the OS will leave the drive letter assignments to the intenal drives alone (I don't care about the backup HDDs' drive letters; that will change every time I plug them into the hot swap bays)). I can also change the name of the HDDs to include the drive letter to further help avoid confusion.

With all this discussion, does anyone think the OP is getting his question answered? And, Lady Fitzgerald, don't worry about the drive letter assignments Windows makes, it is one of the few things you can change any time you like.

My OCD requires me to go to great pains to order my drives. The first hard drive in the top of the rack is connected to port 0, the second is connected to port 1 and so on. That way I never get confused about which is which, but just in case I label the drives and the cables. Windows goes to great lengths to confuse the crap out of me. But, the only redeeming factor is it does not matter how or why Windows does it's numbering scheme.

I just got essenbe's reply so I'm gonna sound like a "me too" about that OCD. First of all, I have OCD to the max; I want my computers, everything for that matter, to be done just right. And I have very little patience for "close enough is good enough" ways of doing things.

About a year ago, I had to pull another line in my computer/electronics/insanity lair, so I called in an electrician. He did such precise work that I commented about his having some serious OCD. It was phrased as a compliment of his attention to detail.

He had the best answer and one that I think applies to essenbe in particular: "Everyone could use a little OCD"

What he meant was care about and respect for the quality of one's work. And, Steve, you may be totally nuts in other ways. I dunno.

All I can say is that your OCD has saved my cute little @$$ on many an occasion.

I was looking in Device Manager at the Properties > Details Tab of my (3) hard drives - which are ordered just so. I have 2 identical 1TB HDDs.

I thought I might find the "unique identifier" that I could look up in the registry, but there are at least 6 values it could be - not much help there.

But what I did find was interesting. There are 2 values named "Date Installed" and "Date First Installed" for each drive. I am wondering if this is the information that Windows uses to order the drives.

My SSD was installed on 1/24/13 at 6:23:08 and is ordered Disk 0. First Installed: same time.
HDD #1 (partitions D,E,F,G,H) was installed on 1/24/13 at 7:28:54 and is ordered Disk 1. First Installed: same time.
HDD #2 (partitions I,J) was installed on 1/24/13 at 7:28:56 and is ordered Disk 2. First Installed: same time.

What I find interesting is that while I installed the SSD first and installed the OS before connecting the hard disks together at the same time, one of the hard disks failed and had to be replaced. Disk 2 was actually not installed until Feb 28. And it does have a different serial number than the defective one. Very strange.

Jeannie - I'm wondering what the dates are on your drives. If the one that was installed, or first installed, the earliest and is the one that insists on being Disk 0, then that may give a clue as to how this actually works in Windows and (possibly) how it could be tweaked.

Note: the other value that is different for each drive is the "Physical Drive Object Name" - a number sequence that is in order of the drive order: 00000063, 64, 65.
I doubt that is the key though.

Now, that's interesting. So, now you have to figure out which number Disk Management goes by and how to change the numbers. Good work TV. We may be one step closer to solving this unsolvable riddle, thanks to you. This is a question that has been unanswered for years. Someone at Microsoft knows how Disk Management orders the drives. Maybe they don't want us OCD types to know so we will keep searching. It would be too simple to just tell everyone. Maybe they consider it a trade secret and you are getting close to being in serious danger. Keep up the good work, but be careful out there.

The SSD was the first one I installed in the machine. I didn't install the second one until after I had installed Win7 on the SSD.

I looked up what the computer thinks were the installation dates (I think it's stoned like an Irish wall). All are showing as being installed on 3/12/2013. The SSD was installed long before the other two.

The SSD (what shows up as Disk 1 and was installed first):.............12:21:21AM
The first spinner (showing up as Disk 0 and was installed second):...12:24:48AM
The second spinner (showing up as Disk 2 and was installed third):..12:24:53AM

Well, I just tried. All my drives are hot swappable. I took out drive 2 in disk management and device 3 became device 2. I put the drive back in with the computer still running and it became dev 3 with the install date of 3/13. I restarted the computer and it again became dev 2 in DM and the install date went back to 10/19.

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